Altered States of Consciousness: Sleep, Dreams, and Disorders

Sleep and Dreams

Consciousness is a state of awareness. Consciousness can range from alertness to non-alertness. Sleep is a state of altered consciousness. Altered consciousness means a person does not have full awareness.

Altered Consciousness and Sleep

Crash Course: Altered ConsciousnessWhy Do We Sleep?

• Restorative - charge up our batteries.
• Brain Recovery - brain recovers from exhaustion and stress.
• Primitive Hibernation - to conserve energy.
• Adaptive Process - In history, sleep kept people from being out at night when they were most vulnerable.
• Thought Clearing - Clear our minds of useless information.
• To Dream - Sleep is for dreaming.

V Sauce VIDEO: "Why do we Dream?"TABLE DISCUSSION Do you believe that dreaming can help a person work through traumatic or difficult issues? Explain. Have you, or has anyone at your table, or that you know ever sleep walked, or had a dream prophecy? Explain. Have you ever had reoccurring dreams? Have you had sleep paralysis? Have you had lucid dream?Stages of Sleep

• Look at textbook pg. 185.

Sleep Cycle Graph 7.2

Sleep Cycle During 8 hours of sleep Awake R.E.M Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 (Deep Sleep) Hours: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 www.LucidDreamExplorers.com/dreamscience

Optimal Sleep Duration

How many hours of shuteye is best? http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2237492803570 June 26, 2023 New research finding some people don't need as much sleep and actually have larger brain volumes.

Sleep Disorders

Sleep Paralysis

• Have you ever woken up but been unable to move?
• Physiologically, sleep paralysis is closely related to REM atonia, the paralysis that occurs as a natural part of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep.
• When sleep paralysis occurs upon falling asleep, the person remains aware while the body shuts down for REM sleep, and it is called hypnagogic or pre-dormital sleep paralysis.

Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI)

• FFI is a disease that targets the thalamus, of which of its many functions is the sleep regulator of the body. Neurons in that area are destroyed.
• The age of onset is variable, ranging from 30 to 60, with an average of 50. However the disease tends to prominently occur in later years.
• Death usually occurs between 7 and 36 months from onset.
• The disease has four stages, taking 7 to 18 months to run its course:
• The patient suffers increasing insomnia, resulting in panic attacks, paranoia, and phobias.
• Hallucinations occur.
• Complete inability to sleep is followed by rapid weight-loss.
• Dementia, during which the patient becomes unresponsive or mute. Other symptoms include profuse sweating, pinprick pupils, the sudden entrance into menopause for women and impotence for men, neck stiffness, and elevation of blood pressure and heart rate. Constipation is common as well. This is the final progression of the disease and the patient will subsequently die.

FFI Film Resources

FFI "Dying to Sleep" - Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI) (35 minutes) Dying to Sleep Second Source for film

Assignment

• Create a chart summarizing the stages of sleep.
• Charts must include the following column headings:
  • Name of Stage
  • Physical State
  • Mental State
• Worksheet 7-1 (Sleep and Dreams)
• Graphic Organizer 7 (Sleep Disorders)